Everson, Michelle --- "European Economic Rights and National State Aids Policy in Conflict: The Problem of the Democratic Securing of Welfare" [2011] ELECD 710; in Szyszczak, Erika (ed), "Research Handbook on European State Aid Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on European State Aid Law

Editor(s): Szyszczak, Erika

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802741

Section: Chapter 14

Section Title: European Economic Rights and National State Aids Policy in Conflict: The Problem of the Democratic Securing of Welfare

Author(s): Everson, Michelle

Number of pages: 9

Extract:

14 European economic rights and national
State aids policy in conflict: the problem
of the democratic securing of welfare
Michelle Everson


I. THE MISMATCH BETWEEN SUPRANATIONAL
ECONOMIC POLICIES AND NATIONAL
WELFARE

The co-ordination of economic and welfare (or social policies) within the
EU is well documented. Clearly, the problem largely remains one of the
level at which each set of policies is pursued, and the subsequent difficul-
ties of national/supranational policy co-ordination: even post conclusion
of the Treaty of Lisbon 2009, the EU's social competence remains very
weak when compared with its economic role; Member States continue to
bear the primary responsibility for the formulation and management of
socially-redistributive mechanisms. Alternatively, where Member States
remain jealous of their interventionist competence, and the EU is still
denied meaningful fiscal powers in order to enable its own form of social
intervention, conflict cannot but arise ­ for a highly topical example ­
between the fiscal probity demanded by the `Growth and Stability Pact'
at supranational level and the socially-corrective interventionist demands
(home State welfare and host State support for the movement of labour)
arising out of such fiscal commitments at national level.
So far, so conventional: and yet, such an obvious lack of political, social
and economic co-ordination is merely the tip of an iceberg of a continu-
ing chasm between the deep structural/constitutional commitments of the
Member States to redistributive economic policies and a body of EU
law that is deeply anchored within the efficiency ...